Snowy Village opened its Coquitlam location in late December. The cold winter and rainy spring didn’t seem to stop people from getting their shaved ice/bingsoo fix. Everytime I went (3 times now, in the last 2 months), there was always a short lineup at the door.

So we noticed some new items on the menu – Mini Watermelon and Honeydew Bingsoo, Golden Cheese and Injeolmi Toasts, and Cheesy Mochy. Naturally, we gave some of these a try.

Food

Cheesy Mochy sounds like a perfect item for the night market (by the way the two night markets are now open) and would make a nice savoury option here. There were 9 pieces of oblong shaped mochi, topped with gochujang sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan sprinkles. As I picked up the mochi ball I got a tiny bit of cheesy pull, but nothing Instagram worthy so to speak. The texture of the mochi ball was harder than I thought; not jaw breaking hard, but dense and chewy much like the ones at Korean restaurants. The mochi balls are stuffed, with what looks like cheese, but there was zero pull and nothing gooey ooey. And no flavour too! The gochujang sauce was good, sweet, slightly spicy, and with mochi balls they have formed a great combo. But, overall it was a bit underwhelming.

The Injeolmi Bingsoo is one of my favourite flavours so I was really curious about the Injeolmi Toast. It’s like thick toasts you find at Taiwanese restaurants. It was an almost inch-thick mochi sandwiched between two pieces of bread, toasted.

The heat of the freshly toasted bread melted the soybean powder on top so it kind of turned into a nutty syrup. (more…)

It may already be September but we are not quite finished with the hot weather yet. On those occasional warm days, you would be craving icy treats. Actually for Mr., he would just crave icy treats on a random day, even if it’s cold outside!

So, it’s only fitting that we accepted an invitation from ChineseBites to check out Icy Bar near Boundary and Kingsway. They also have another location at Knight and Kingsway.

Food

As a group tasting, you can imagine the amount of dishes we sampled. Here are some highlights for me:

Mango Ice Cream Mochi Icy – This is like mango heaven! Fresh mango with mango sauce drizzle on top of vanilla ice cream and shaved ice. I like the addition of mochi balls for some chewy texture, otherwise it would be all liquidy, especially when the ice cream and shaved ice starts to melt.

Chocolate Honey Toast – This is like a new take on thick toast. The thick toast is cut into cubes, nicely stacked into a pile, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce drizzle. The thick toast is slightly sweetened; the flavour almost reminds you of condensed milk. It’s crispy, crunchy on the outside, and it’s still soft and chewy inside. The thick toast cubes are served warm, so you have to eat quickly otherwise the warm toast would melt the ice cream!

Tucked away in a hidden corner of a strip mall in Burquitlam (i.e. the North Road area between Burnaby and Coquitlam), there is a restaurant specialized in an ingredient favoured by many Asians — rice cakes. With a recommendation from friends, we went and checked it out.

Food

And yes, their menu is indeed full of various interpretations of rice cakes. Korean rice cakes. You can have it savoury, spicy, or even sweet. First, we were quite excited when we saw the Rice Cake Pasta with Tomato Meat Sauce. It was still bubbling when it got to our table. At first glance, I thought of those baked pasta dishes that you can get at HK cafes. Then we dug in, it’s a spicy tomato meat sauce! It tasted different from Gochujang — the Korean chili paste — and it wasn’t overly spicy; but the level of heat was just enough to whet our appetite. The rice cakes were of great texture — chewy, good elasticity, but didn’t require you to chew a hundred times to break it down. This is like spaghetti bolognese with a Korean twist. A hearty dish.

If you can’t eat spicy food, you can order the Royal Court Rice Pasta with Soy Sauce. It’s a simple stir fry of sliced beef, onion, bell peppers and mushrooms, and of course rice cakes, in a soy sauce. There’s a slight sweetness in the sauce, and the dish reminded me of a Chinese stir fry.